Page 17 of The Butcher

He turned up dead, hanging upside down from the flagpole in front of that same school, his intestines hanging down in front of his face while he swung dickless in the breeze. They never did find who killed him. I don’t think they even tried. Especially when that same gym teacher’s missing dick was found in theexhaust pipe of the chief of police’s car. They got the message, my parents got enough cash to keep them comfortable into retirement, and I found out I was really good with a knife.

From there, things got tricky.

I found myself picturing the various ways I could kill the people I knew, methods and weapons because a regular part of the narratives in my head, and eventually I couldn’t keep my curiosity under wraps. When I started picking off drifters or loners within sixty miles of home, Mom knew what was going on, and she asked me to stop.

Which is where the other incorrect assumption my doc made came into play; I fucking love my mama and would do literally anything for her or my dads. Not only do I have empathy—all I needed to see were the tears in her eyes and my heart shattered—but I’m perfectly capable of feeling love, showing it to others, and building stable relationships from it.

I’m just picky.

That’s what it comes down to.

If you aren’t mine, I don’t want you, and there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to kill you.

And that was a huge part of why I had to leave Alaska. When you live in a small town, people notice when people disappear, and then they talk.

But I’ve never been out of control. Not once. Everything I’ve ever done has been planned down to the letter, and that’s probably the only psychopathic characteristic I have and will agree with.

Finding Obsidian Falls when I did, that was divine intervention or some shit, even more so when I met the boys and found out what Bramley liked to do in his spare time.

Other than Nash.

And for the last seventeen years, I’ve been the driver, I’ve been the one who makes sure we don’t make a mess we can’t clean up, and that was a job I really prided myself on.

Six.

My job before that stupid accident.

Five.

Looking down at my leg, I feel that same disbelief, the same anger, and helplessness I felt nine months ago when it happened. I stick my boot out, rolling it back and forth on the heel, staring at the steel toe so hard it’s like I’m trying to see through the layers of leather and insulation, but I don’t need to see through it to know what’s there.

Breathing through four and three, I gently pull my jeans up my leg, stopping just under my knee to expose most of my shin tube and socket. The dull gray looks odd sticking out the top of my boot but it’s something I’ve slowly gotten used to. Especially after I painted the glossy black that stretches between that and the external knee joint and cuff. The prosthetic didn’t feel like it was mine until I did that, and even though everyone kept telling me how it would be just like I’d always had it in no time, customizing it was the closest I got to that feeling.

Which is how I feel most of the time, and it’s why I haven’t let all of the anger and grief over losing part of my fucking limb consume me. I can still be the sunshine the two black clouds outside need because it could have been worse. I could have lost something irreplaceable, like my entire liver, or my cock. I could have lost one of them. So, there’s no reason for me to be angry all the time, and it’s ok for me to be angry some of the time. Because it still fucking sucks, and there are the days I look down and feel like this body isn’t mine anymore, and I can’t understand why this happened.

All the feelings are valid, I could go on a spree and feel like it was justified, but that’s not how things work. And I know fora fact it would make things hard for my boys and the rest of the people I consider family.

It was supposed to be easy.

It should have been easy.

Zeke found the crotchety fucker we’d been looking for, a fellow beta who’d worked for the Hardens since well before they had an official ranch, and someone the brothers thought was directly involved in what happened here in Obsidian Falls. He’d just retired and moved to Harpers Ferry with his partners, old as fuck and living guilt free since he didn’t seem to give a shit about using a pension built on the backs of dead omegas. We should have been in and out, a quickie that took up a few hours at most of a well-earned weekend away, but that’s not what happened at all.

Considering the age of our target, Titus didn’t even bother coming with us, the gigantic baby of the family just stared blankly at his older brothers for what felt like four hours then turned back to the book he was reading, and Zeke? For the first time since I’ve known him, he decided to sit this one out, too, because he thought four of us against a few geriatrics was going to be over too quickly to be any fun. So, he gave us the information we needed, and our cute little pack loaded the truck and made our way to Harpers Ferry for what I assumed would be a nice little vacation.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong in my entire fucking life.

And it shouldn’t have gone down that way.

Nine months of recovery, doctor appointments, physical therapy, and two crab ass alphas keeping me under house arrest has been enough to have me questioning myself at times but I’m honestly just grateful things didn’t end up worse. My alphas? I don’t think they see things the same way.

I know they don’t.

When Bramley decided that I didn’t get to go hunting anymore, I was pissed. He’s usually the one who makes the decisions when it comes to that but never, in seventeen years, has he just shut shit down without a conversation. Never. And even though I was mad and ready to start a fight, I tried putting myself in his shoes.

Bram was scared.

It was the first time we had a hunt go south, the first time any of us got hurt in the process, and I know the idea of losing me or Nash and the feelings that come with that is a lot more than he can handle. Which is why he was a raging dickhead and told me the only time I would ever be leaving Obsidian Falls again was to visit my parents in Anchorage.

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